Returned
by BrickSheep
Summary: Hank had a son. His name was Connor and he had been missing for three years.


It kept him awake at night.

When the haze of a drunk evening left him, when there is no more noise or chatter out in the streets, he is left alone with his own thoughts. Being left alone with his thoughts is a horrifying experience that he'd rather not deal with on a daily basis. The alcohol did a good job of making him forget things and that's why he preferred getting drunk over anything else. Being left alone to his own devices, unattended, with thoughts that spiral out of control in his mind is not ideal. At one point, in his younger days, he might have berated himself for acting like such a coward. Now all he does is make his problems and conflicting emotions wash away after a sip from his bottle. Younger days be damned.

But he didn't have his bottle right now. His bottle layed beside his bed, empty after a midnight's breakdown, and he had tried desperately to get something out of it. He remembered looking straight into it like a telescope, hovering over his eye, pointed straight up at the ceiling. Any drop would have done but there wasn't anything to be had in the bottle. Now, it was just a shell, much like Hank himself.

It's been that way ever since Connor disappeared.

Three years. That was a pretty damn long time for _family_ to go without any contact. Hank remembered, vaguely, of his son telling him that he'd make sure to call him. He does call him for a few weeks, every single day, at 7:00 PM on the dot. Then June rolls in and Connor misses one. Then he misses more than just one, he misses several, and Hank had been left piercing his bottom lip after all the nervous chewing he did.

He had put up a search and he had been determined to find Connor. He traced his son's steps to the smallest detail. He also made sure to put his years of detective training to use, using every method he learned, even going so far as to conduct research on similar missing person cases for tips on how to progress further. He also interviewed several of Connor's friends and all of them had similar answers. To summarize them all, they didn't know where he was, and that was when Hank began to question if Connor had ever _told him_ where he was going, to begin with. All Hank recalled was being told that Connor had an old friend he wanted to visit but there was never a specific location mentioned.

So Hank looked for weeks. Month after month.

Now it's been three years and he's not sure what to do anymore.

Alcohol is no longer as soothing as it once had been. He would drown himself in it and wallow away in his sorrow. Sometimes he almost expects a scolding from his son and sometimes he can _hear_ Connor doing exactly that in his head. He'd say something along the lines of, "I advise you not to continue your current behavior" or some crap like that. Connor had always worried over Hank's health and Hank wondered if Connor knew that this is where Hank would end up after three years of searching for him. Connor, by all means, would not be happy to learn of Hank's downward spiral.

And then he found it.

The man who contacted him is anonymous and has a voice filter. When Hank answered a phone call, late in the afternoon, he hadn't expected much. He thought that maybe all that he'd receive was a scammer calling or one of Connor's friends. (They had been contacting him throughout the years to ask if he needed anything) When he heard a deep robotic voice filter through the phone line, he is immediately put on edge, and his shoulders had stiffened.

"I know where he is," they told him, "And I need your help."

When he sees his face Hank takes a faltered step back.

They meet at a warehouse at the edge of the city. The stranger approached him with a long trench coat and a hat that was low enough to cover a bit of his face. Still, even with that hat, Hank had seen some of the man's features. Hank had thought something to be familiar about him, in the way his jaw was shaped, and in the way he pressed his lips together in a thin line. It isn't until the hat is taken off that Hank's heart nearly stopped. For a moment he couldn't breathe. For a moment, he was a father again, and he had been staring straight in the face of his son.

"I'm not him," the man had said immediately. "We are similar in appearance, but no, I am not Connor."

Hank felt fear. Genuine, unadulterated, fear. He feared for how this man came to be, what the original intention might have been for such a being with his son's face to come to pass, and then he felt a rage that made his face turn red. He had been half-tempted to throw his shaking fists at the look-a-like but he found himself unable to punch a face that looked so much like his son's.

"Cyberlife created me with the intent on replacing Connor," the android explains, his LED glowing a cautious yellow, "and believe it or not, Connor rescued me from their institution. In exchange, however, he was captured. He is now in Cyberlife custody and I don't want him to stay that way."

Hank's words flew out of his mouth before he has a chance to stop himself. He asked, "But for _three years_?"

The look-alike had the same eyes as Connor. That's why it put Hank off, greatly, at how similar the two were. The only thing that was different was the way in the doppelganger spoke. Connor's speech patterns had always been collected and calculating. The speech that his twin had used was bordering emotional and empathetic. It was genuine.

"He has been offlined," the twin had said with a wince.

Hank stopped breathing.

"But do not worry - he can be brought back - but he will be lacking some vital information."

Hank questioned, "And what is that?"

The android across from him hesitated after he had asked his question. Hank already feared that he knew the answer just from the look on the man's face.

"His memory," he answered, "he won't remember you or anyone else."

It hit him like a tidal wave. It is abrupt and Hank felt like falling onto the ground at the sudden weight on his shoulders. The worry and the concern erupted within him and threw his mind into a chaotic mess. His thoughts were everywhere but there was one that stood out amongst the rest.

Connor wouldn't remember him.

Hank wondered if Connor would even be Connor without his memories. Would they even have the same personality? Would he be as willing to call Hank family, once more, or would he be an emotionless robot?

And Hank can't believe himself because there is one evident truth.

He doesn't care about any of those things.

He just wanted his son back.

That is how he ended up making a plan to reveal Cyberlife's illegal kidnapping. Many times, Hank had thought of charging in there himself, and he still does when they don't get enough evidence to throw the police at Cyberlife. That's when RK900, as the android had introduced himself as, had directly confronted Markus for help. Eventually, it is not just Hank and the RK900 model that work together. The whole entire Jericho gang is at their side in an instant and assisted them with their plans. Hank, while not unthankful, thought that the Jericho crew was helping him more out of a personal vendetta against Cyberlife. While they all did care about their friend, his son, their hatred for Cyberlife was tenfold. That much had been evident the moment they revealed separate plans to sabotage Cyberlife from the inside after Connor had been safely retrieved.

It happened in a blur.

Markus doesn't go in because everyone knew his face. He was the renowned deviant leader and he would have been recognized in a second. That is why he operated on the outside while the rest found themselves being smuggled in under RK900's command. The Connor look-alike was under the guise of an android returning to his creators after having been 'wrongfully' taken out of the facility against his will. During this time Hank had been ripe with impatience and nervous anticipation. He thought of all the things he'd do with Connor after he found him again. Maybe he'd knock him upside the head, which might seem cruel seeing as how he wouldn't remember him, but Hank thought that it'd be a good wake up call. In the end, he decided against it, because if he did knock Connor upside the head… it would be out of his own personal frustration… and Connor would be the poor recipient of bundled up emotions.

"There, you see?" RK900 whispered to him as the Jericho crew split up into different rooms. Hank had a hard time finding what RK900 was pointing at until he finds a plastic model hanging by the neck from the device that created all androids. Hank nearly had a heart attack right then and there. He doesn't think about RK900 or anything else in the room. He had tunnel vision on his apparent pale son and it was so _strange_ because Hank didn't remember a time he had seen Connor so vulnerable. He had never seen Connor in his original form.

Hank finds it in himself to bring a shaky hand to his son's cheek. The plastic was smooth under his touch and he half expected Connor to just wake up then and there.

But RK900 gently pushed him away instead.

"Allow me," the man muttered and he grabbed something hidden in his pocket. Hank wasn't too knowledgeable on androids so he didn't know what the device in RK900's hand was. All he could do was watch him as he entered the device into the space between Connor's stomach and chest. He then quickly ran to a machine nearby and worked his magic.

Connor is released from his hanging cell and Hank is there to catch him. He held him tight as he gazed at his son's face. He waited for anything. A movement. A jolt. Something. Something that would show him that RK900's words were true and that his son would wake up any moment.

When Connor opened his eyes, Hank cried.

It's not something he usually does. Hell no.

But-

 _Three years._

Three years.

Hank is so busy crying that he nearly full on sobs when Connor said his first words since waking, "I apologize, did I upset you?"

That was just the thing too. Yes. Yes, Connor upset him, but then there was an unfiltered joy that blossomed in his chest. It was wonderful and beautiful and Hank didn't want it to go away. Not now. Not ever.

"Do you want to go home?" Hank asked. RK900 stood aside, watching patiently, and Hank found himself appreciating the strange android that had assisted this far a lot more than before. He'd make sure that RK900 had a home too, just like Connor, because there was no way in hell that he'd leave his little helper alone in the streets.

Yet, as much as he was thankful for RK900's help, he was selfishly focused on Connor's current state. He was waiting for a reply. That's all he wanted. To hear Connor's voice.

"I have a home?" Connor asked, innocent, and oblivious.

And suddenly Hank had a new purpose for living. It's clear in between his tears, into the depths of his heart, and in the hope that appeared when Hank needed it most.

"Yeah," he said as he pulled Connor up into a hug and his son made no movement to return it. It didn't matter though. Hank had no doubt that Connor would catch up to those sort of things in time.

For now - Hank didn't care about the small things - because he had his son back.

"So let's go home, okay?"


End file.
